


Come Closer

by choomchoom



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: F/F, Fake Marriage, Real Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 03:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18460115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: Windblade is selected to travel with Thunderclash to help Metroplex, and Chromia isn't invited. The solution? Pretend to be Conjunxes so Windblade won't be sent away alone. Unfortunately, it's not going to be quite that simple.





	Come Closer

**Author's Note:**

> Happy extremely belated Femslash February! I wrote this for TF Femslash Week ages ago, but I didn't finish it in time for the event so I let it sit until now. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> If any of the Titan Lore contradicts canon, that's my fault and I'm sorry.

“People will ask what the ceremony was like,” Windblade mused. She was lying on the berth in Chromia’s quarters, expression contemplative as she looked up at the light fixture.

Chromia wasn’t even pretending not to stare at her. If Windblade didn’t agree to this, Chromia didn’t know what she would do. “If that’s your only objection, it doesn’t sound like you’re saying no.”

“I’m not!” Windblade sat up to look Chromia in the eye. Chromia felt her shoulders relax. Whatever came next wouldn’t be a dismissal of the whole idea, and that was all that mattered. “I would love for you to come,” Windblade said. “But think about it. If we did this, that would mean going off into space for who knows how long with nothing in particular to do. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

Chromia rolled her eyes and scooched over to lean against the side of the berth, shooting an unimpressed look up at Windblade. “The alternative is staying here and driving myself crazy every day wondering if you’re okay. I would, no question, be unhappy.”

“You’re sure about this?”

Chromia hoped to hell that the wavering in Windblade’s voice meant that she wanted this too. “Surer than I’ve ever been of anything.”

“Okay then.” Windblade’s face, which had been a picture of neutrality, broke into a smile. “In that case: the ceremony. I had an idea.”

-

“ _You_ got hitched!” Astra at least had the decency to wait until morning drills were over before clapping Chromia on the shoulder and yelling the aforementioned in her audial, loud enough for the whole street to hear.

Windblade and Chromia had gone to file the paperwork at the government building _quietly_ early this morning, but that didn’t seem to have stopped the gossip gears – Caminus would be Caminus.

“I did.” Chromia didn’t have any trouble making her voice sound pleased. Even though she and Windblade were only conjunxes in the most technical of ways, the faked status was Chromia’s ticket to joining Windblade on her mission.

“I knew it! For years!” Astra punched the side of Chromia’s arm in enthusiasm. “You two are great together! I can’t believe you waited this long, to be honest. Who initiated?”

They had planned for this. “Her.”

Astra squealed. “Of course it was her! You’ve always been the sappy-crush-from-afar type.”

Chromia couldn’t help but side-eye them. “We’ve been amica for centuries.”

Astra rolled their eyes. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

Chromia didn’t have a response for that.

“I’m so happy for you! And right before she’s leaving the planet. You’re gonna go with her then, right?”

Chromia tried not to give them _too_ self-satisfied of a nod.

“Ohhh, look who it is!” Astra batted at Chromia’s arm, as if Chromia hadn’t noticed Windblade walking toward them as they exited the training fields.

Chromia couldn’t jeopardize this now. “Hey babe,” she said, sticking a flirtatious hip out and hoping Windblade interpreted it as the _they know_ signal that she intended.

Windblade seemed to get the message. “Hey,” she said, features relaxing into a sunny smile. She stepped into Chromia’s space and it was the most natural thing in the world for Chromia to swing an arm around her shoulders.

And then…shit. The next natural step for any couple of conjunxes meeting in the street, intentionally or not, was to kiss.

They had _not_ planned for this.

As Chromia’s thoughts descended into white noise with panic, Windblade pinged her. Chromia managed to open the ping and focus on Windblade’s thoughts as they drifted through the connection and into Chromia’s mind.

_< Ok?> _

Chromia managed a smile to convey her consent, and then she was moving toward Windblade and Windblade was moving toward her, and their lips were meeting, and _oh_.

This was so much better than Chromia had ever imagined, and she’d imagined it plenty of times. Windblade was beautiful and clever and kind and too absorbed in her craft to be interested in a real conjunx relationship – she spent enough time apologizing for not being a present enough amica. Chromia had been careful to keep her feelings to herself. They were her business, and they would only be a burden to Windblade.

All of that, for a second, was blown away by the softness of Windblade’s lips, the headiness of being so close to her, by flicking her eyes open to see her face from this particular angle, for what she knew would be the only time.

_< I had no idea.> _

Chromia froze. She cut off the radio connection abruptly and pulled back from Windblade, trying to act like her whole world hadn’t just crashed down around her, like she was still holding onto Windblade out of affection rather than needing to stay upright.

“I’ve got to get home – congratulations, again!” Astra gushed. Chromia managed to wave, hopefully not too stiffly, as they walked off.

Chromia forced herself to remove her arm from Windblade’s shoulder. She turned around and walked down the street, picking a direction at random. If Windblade never wanted to see her again, she wouldn’t have to.

“Chromia, wait!” Windblade had rushed in front of her, went to put a hand on Chromia’s shoulder and then thought better of it. Chromia had never liked being touched when she was upset and Windblade _knew that_ and Windblade was her _best friend_ and Chromia had ruined _everything._

“I’m so sorry.” Chromia couldn’t bear to direct her gaze above Windblade’s feet.

“You don’t have to apologize.” Windblade’s voice was soft – too soft, too nice. “You never have to apologize for how you feel.”

And just like that, Chromia’s equilibrium was back. Here was Windblade, offering her usual sage advice in response to Chromia’s spiral of self-deprecation. Here was Windblade, who had followed her when she’d walked away, who was still standing in front of her.

Maybe – _maybe_ things would be okay.

“I’m not apologizing for how I feel,” Chromia said, forcing herself to meet Windblade’s eyes. “I’m apologizing for not telling you. For lying to you. I’m sorry that I fielded the fake-conjunx idea when you weren’t operating with all the information.”

“In that case, you’re forgiven,” Windblade said. Chromia let her eyes drift to the side. “Hug?”

Chromia nodded and let Windblade wrap her arms around her.

-

“Oh.” The door to their quarters on the Vis Vitalis had just started to close when Windblade’s optics focused on the berth.

The single berth, efficiency-sized, with its two recharge setups.

“I’ll crash on the floor, there’s room,” Chromia said, swinging her bag off her shoulders and propping it up at the side of the berth. She sat down, cross-legged, and rested the back of her head against the berth.

They were really both here. Now they just had to navigate the consequences.

Windblade set her own bag down and sat cross-legged on the floor, facing Chromia. “I may not be a big strong security officer, but I’m not too dainty to sleep on the floor.”

Chromia gave her a flat look, and Windblade mentally scoured for a topic that _wouldn’t_ hit some land mine. Eventually, they would have to talk about what Windblade had seen when they’d kissed. She knew that Chromia would never, under any circumstances, bring it up, but Windblade couldn’t conceive of a way to slide into the conversation that wouldn’t just close Chromia off further.

“How are you feeling about the mission?” Chromia asked. The attempt she was making to segue the conversation off of herself was obvious. “Nervous?”

“A bit,” Windblade said. Now that Chromia mentioned it, the doubts that this whole situation with Chromia had driven to the back of her mind resurfaced. “I’ve been thinking about Metroplex. He’s been out there, hurt, alone, for so long. I don’t know what he’ll be like.”

“Well, I don’t know much about cityspeakers –”

Windblade rolled her eyes and chuckled. “We’ve been friends for how long, again?”

“– _but_ I think that the Mistress chose you, out of all of them, because you can handle it. Whatever it takes to get through to him, to heal him, you’re the one who she trusts to figure it out.”

“That’s very sweet.” Windblade spread her lips into a smile she didn’t quite feel. “Doesn’t help if it’s too big a job for any of us.”

Chromia just looked away, giving Windblade the opening she’d been waiting for.

“That’s why I can’t do a relationship,” she said. Chromia looked up at her with narrowed optics, as if Windblade had betrayed some silent pact they’d made to Not Talk About It. But avoiding difficult subjects had always been more Chromia’s style. “If I said I was opposed, I would be lying. But I can’t do it. Working with Metroplex is going to take everything I have. Even being one of two hundred cityspeakers on Caminus was enough to be all I could think about, all the time.”

“Okay.” Chromia’s one-word response was soft. “Really, though, me sleeping on the floor is no problem at all. I wouldn’t even notice the difference.”

“Well, we won’t find out whether that’s true, because you’re taking the berth,” Windblade said with a blithe shrug. She ordinarily wouldn’t have been quite so insistent – ordinarily, she wasn’t wracked with guilt over hurting her friend. She knew that Chromia wouldn’t resent Windblade for taking the berth – Chromia might even prefer it, because her mind worked in weird ways. But taking any kindness from Chromia right now would feel like taking advantage of something she hadn’t earned.

“You’re too stubborn for your own good,” Chromia said.

“Would sharing it offend you as a bodyguard, too?”

“Yes.”

“ _Chromia_.”

Chromia just rolled her optics, and let Windblade persuade her to share.

-

Metroplex was a dark fortress that loomed before them. The lights from their shuttle barely penetrated the darkness, rendering the Titan in shadow. Even just looking at him, Windblade was inundated with the mixture of awe and fear that had roiled in her chest since she’d been asked to go on this mission.

This was Metroplex. Her new home, and her duty.

“Anywhere in particular I should land?” Nautica was at the controls of their shuttle, peering at the sight in front of them with wide optics.

“Shuttle bays are in the hands and feet when they’re in root mode,” Windblade said. “But I can’t tell whether the rest of the body will be accessible from that far out. Go for the head.”

“Fly into the Titan’s head! Okay!” Nautica said, a note of hysteria underlying her cheer. “Just gonna…fly into its head.”

“Not it. Trion called Metroplex _he_ , but I’ll need to ask to be sure,” Windblade said. “Definitely not _it_.”

“Where should I aim, exactly?” Nautica asked. “The head part is…about a mile across. _Solus_.” All of them were too young to have ever seen Caminus in his root mode, but Chromia and Nautica had only seen the paintings of him. Windblade had seen – had memorized – the schematics, and had walked Caminus’s underground segments enough to _almost_ comprehend the scale that Titans lived at.

“The mouth should allow us access to the brain module,” Windblade said. “Nothing’s for sure. We don’t know where he’s injured.”

“We’ll have to be ready for anything in there, huh?” Chromia asked.

Windblade managed to tear her eyes away from Metroplex’s exterior for long enough to study Chromia’s expression. Her words had been cautious ones, but the corners of her mouth were turned up, and she was leaning forward on the balls of her feet.

Chromia, from what Windblade could tell, had spent most of her life longing to be put in unexpected situations – situations where she could use the fullest extent of her skills to improve the world around her. Caminus hadn’t done much to offer her the opportunity.

Windblade knew that whatever they would find, it would count as unexpected. She was suddenly intensely glad that Chromia had a reason to be invested in this aside from her desire to look after Windblade.

Lightheaded from the excitement and nerves of being at this stage of their mission, Windblade reached out and grasped Chromia’s hand. Chromia startled but gave her a slight squeeze in acknowledgement, optics flicking to meet Windblade’s for just a moment. Then they both looked back out to Metroplex’s head, which by now may as well have been a neverending wall of metal in front of them.

Nautica drove the ship in through Metroplex’s mouth. The corridors around them were made of metal so corroded that it made Windblade’s spark ache, and Chromia was squeezing her hand back before Windblade had even realized her grip had tightened.

“Should I land here?” Nautica’s voice was quiet, reverent of the deep darkness around them. They were at the end of a hallway that split off into two corridors that both looked too narrow for the shuttle.

“Might as well,” Windblade said, trying to project calm. She was supposed to be the one who knew what she was doing here. For Nautica and Chromia right now, this was deeply unfamiliar ground. Windblade, at least, had her training to give her some idea of what to expect.

The shuttle touched down, landing softly in the underwater corridor. Windblade heard it magnetize to the floor.

“Shall we explore?” Chromia’s voice sounded artificially blasé. Windblade hoped that her acting hadn’t been so bad that Chromia felt the need to compensate for it. At least they could lean on each other’s false bravado.

“Let’s go.” Sounding calm wasn’t quite so much of a struggle this time.

The three of them stepped into the airlock, and Nautica activated the control to depressurize the door. Once the airlock was filled with water, the door opened. Windblade stepped out first, placing one foot and then the other on Metroplex’s inner surface.

Metroplex didn’t immediately try to throw her out, which was a good sign. It wasn’t impossible that whatever had been done to him in the war had left him distrustful, and that Windblade and her company would end their journey here crushed or smelted in Metroplex’s recycling centers in an act of self-defense.

But now Chromia and Nautica had stepped out behind her, both of them clicking headlights on to illuminate the hallway. “Any ideas?” Chromia asked, turning her lights down one hallway, then the other.

Windblade was looking at the wall in front of her, at the junction between hallways. Chromia seemed to notice and turned her headlights to the path of Windblade’s gaze.

“I think this is a door,” Windblade said, stepping closer to it. She couldn’t be sure, but, given the distance they’d flown, and everything Windblade knew about Titan anatomy, they could be standing just outside the processor chamber.

Windblade knew what to do. She’d done it hundreds of thousands of times on Caminus. Caminus’s processor chamber opened with a pressure sensor built for someone just about Windblade’s height. It required a touch not too hesitant and not too firm to open the door. For the first several years of her training, Windblade had been consistently terrified that she would do it wrong, and not be allowed in. That particular insecurity had left her a long time ago.

But this was different; for as long as Windblade had been alive, Caminus had been too deeply asleep to willingly keep anyone out. They had no idea if the same was true of Metroplex. So even if Windblade’s touch was perfect, they might be stuck out here.

And Windblade would have failed before she’d even had a chance to get started.

She tried to calm herself, reached for a hint of the poise that she had once envied in the Mistress of Flame, and more recently seen flashes of in herself as she trained the younger Cityspeakers. She had to believe that Metroplex would let her in. Her intentions were good, and her arms were open.

Her optics slid over to Nautica, whose face was alight with fascination as she examined the seams outlining the door.

She was here to learn.

She snuck a quick glance at Chromia.

She was here to embrace any challenge that rose to meet her.

Windblade walked forward and put her palm against the wall, exactly where she would have put it to enter Caminus’s processor chamber.

For a sparkshattering moment, nothing happened. Seconds dragged by, and Windblade prepared to step back, to deal with the fact that she’d been barred, and come up with a new strategy.

Then the wall seemed to rumble, and the door, invisible in the corrosion that covered the walls, started to rise toward the ceiling with a terrific screech.

Windblade tempered her excitement that it was _working_ with nervousness that the door might get well and truly stuck.

But the door slid to the ceiling, allowing them through. Windblade, again, led the way, finally clicking on her own lights to observe the inside of the processor chamber. They barely pierced the darkness within.

Still, it took only a moment for Windblade to realize that the space where Metroplex’s brain module should have rested was empty.

“Uh,” Nautica said, her headlights overlapping Windblade’s as she stepped into the room. “I don’t suppose that’s normal?”

“Not normal,” Windblade said, resetting her optics just in case that gave her any hints as to what could be going on here.

Windblade felt Chromia step up to her side, not quite close enough for their arms to brush together. “What’s the plan, boss?” she asked.

Didn’t she realize how out of her depth Windblade was? Didn’t she realize that Windblade wasn’t trained to work with a Titan who _had no brain module_?

Windblade stared at the empty space where Metroplex’s brain module should have been. If anyone here could figure this out, Windblade could – like Chromia had said. Maybe she would fall short of what Metroplex needed. But she at least had to _try_.

Trion had said that Metroplex was hurting. He couldn’t have been hurting if his brain module had been stolen. If that were the case, he would be dead.

“He moved it,” Windblade said, as soon as the answer clicked into place in her mind. “He transported his brain module to a new location to protect himself. But we’re here to protect him now. So our plan is to find it.” Windblade tore her optics away from the no-longer-terrifying space where she’d expected to see brain module to look over at Chromia. Chromia’s optics were on Windblade, soft and fond, for the few seconds before she averted them.

Windblade couldn’t tell Chromia that she didn’t know if she ever would have found the courage to puzzle out the answer without Chromia’s unshakeable faith in her. Chromia had expected Windblade to know what to do next, so Windblade had.

So far, it was working. Windblade wouldn’t dare change anything.

“We should get our stuff in order, find a place to stay nearby, and then start exploring,” Windblade said.

“Yes, explore!” Nautica’s excitement was evident in her voice, and something about it made Windblade vow to try her best to _make_ all of this be okay.

-

Chromia found Metroplex to be unnervingly quiet.

The three of them had found a corridor of rooms at the level below Metroplex’s processor chamber, where the fluid that flooded the top levels hadn’t dripped to. They’d unloaded their recharge equipment – they couldn’t risk using the shuttle’s fuel anymore, unless they wanted to be stranded and never be able to return to Caminus.

Nautica had volunteered to room by herself, but Windblade had insisted that they all stay together, at least for the first few nights while they figured things out with Metroplex. Chromia couldn’t fault Nautica her grateful smile when Windblade had said that – nobody wanted to be alone on their first night in a city of ghosts.

That also meant that Windblade and Chromia were, for the first time since leaving the Vis Vitalis, sharing a dual-port efficiency recharge berth. Chromia wasn’t sure why they hadn’t told Nautica yet that the conjunx thing was a bit to convince the Mistress to let Chromia go on the mission. Other things always seemed to come up – with Nautica, with the Vis Vitalis crew. They hadn’t told anyone the truth yet.

Sleeping on the floor tonight wasn’t really an option anyway. Chromia would have done it if she had to, but the floor here was so covered in rust that she’d be brushing it off her frame for a week. Not something she would have time for, with all the work that would clearly need done.

“Still awake?” Windblade’s voice was fuzzy with sleep, and Chromia turned herself around to face her, hoping it was the right thing to do. It was what she would have once done, before Windblade had learned the truth.

“I feel like I should be on guard,” Chromia said. “Or someone should.”

“Metroplex wouldn’t have shut down like this if there was a chance of danger,” Windblade said with a confidence Chromia hadn’t expected. “He’s a Titan. He knows how to find a safe place to hide.”

“What if he shut down from low energy, though?”

Windblade shook her head. “He wouldn’t. Titans aren’t like us – they don’t run out of energy, because their space bridge sustains them even in dire emergencies. Caminus is only struggling because he’s so far from being able to reach enough energy to sustain the bridge, and he’s been hibernating for millennia.”

Chromia just nodded. “I’ll try to believe it.”

“Is that all that’s bothering you?” Windblade always pushed when Chromia didn’t want her to. When Chromia needed her to.

“Yep.” Chromia turned to stare at the ceiling, hoping that Windblade wouldn’t push it. It was the middle of the damn night. “I’m dealing with it,” she added.

“I’m sorry,” Windblade said.

“Thought we weren’t supposed to apologize for how we feel.” Chromia tried and probably failed to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Windblade laughed quietly at that. “How’s this, then: I wish you were having an easier time.”

Chromia nodded. It was the perfect thing to say. Of course it was perfect; it was Windblade. “Go to sleep.”

Windblade let out a soft chuckle at that blatant conversation-stopper and then offlined her optics. Chromia tried to settle, too, doing her best to ignore both the threats she could imagine in the shadows above and Windblade’s soft vents beside her.

-

It had been three weeks, and Chromia finally felt like she was starting to adjust to life in Metroplex.

The first week had been all exploration, prying open doors where they could and marking where they couldn’t, attempting, briefly, to clean the sectors that weren’t submerged, before Windblade had decreed that they shouldn’t even bother, and slowly acclimating to the silence and corrosion that, for now, meant home.

Weeks two and three had been composed of projects – Nautica had been working on engines all over the city while Chromia designed and implemented a system of pulleys, zip lines, and ladders that would let them get from place to place as quickly and safely as possible. Windblade had spent most of her time with the brain module once they’d found it. She cleaned and replaced damaged wires, doing everything she could to find Metroplex’s voice.

Sometimes it felt like nothing had changed from that first night when Metroplex was a terrifying mass of mystery and danger. And other times it felt like the progress they’d made had turned Metroplex into a different place – being – entirely.

Last night, at the nightly meeting that they’d started having since Nautica had quietly migrated into her own room, Windblade had made an announcement: today, she was going to try to talk to Metroplex.

Chromia hadn’t spent much time with the brain module, what with everything else she’d been working on. It was, of all the places their little crew had worked on, definitely the most transformed. The rust stains that had covered it from its long submersion were mostly gone. Windblade had lugged down a couple of terminals from the head, which were plugged in to the brain module and waiting for input. Nautica had even gotten some of the lights working, so the shoulder area was only mostly in shadow.

Windblade had instructed that they all be here for this – they didn’t want to spook Metroplex by poking at some system of his when she was trying to get his attention. So here they were, loitering next to the brain of a Titan, waiting for Windblade to hook into Metroplex’s systems.

Chromia was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. Windblade had circled the room four, five times, adjusting one or two tiny dials or brushing a speck of dust off of a panel each round.

Chromia wondered if this was what Windblade doubting herself looked like.

“Can we help with anything? Nautica asked, lifting her eyes from the datapad she’d been reading as Windblade started yet another circle.

“No, no. It’s ready,” Windblade said. She stopped where she was, a few feet from the replaced linkup cable.

“Are _you_ ready?” Chromia risked taking a step closer. Windblade hadn’t been weird about physicality lately, but Chromia knew that _she_ had. None of that mattered now, though – what Windblade cared about was that she be in top form to accomplish what she wanted to accomplish. If what Chromia had to offer was a pep talk and a hug, then she’d give it.

“I don’t know anyone who’s done this,” Windblade said, her refusal to answer Chromia’s question a clear _no_. “I know how to do it – it’s a line of code I memorized before I even took my first training exam. It’s what happens after that that I’m not ready for.”

“Yes, you are,” Chromia said, stepping forward again so that she could take Windblade’s hands in hers. In her peripheral vision, Nautica had very conspicuously gone back to looking at her datapad. “You’re ready both because you’re an incredible cityspeaker, and because you’re the person that you are. I know you can do this.”

Windblade leaned her head against Chromia’s shoulder, and Chromia tried to squash the flickering in her spark that the gesture elicited. This wasn’t about her.

“Alright. I can do this.” Windblade’s voice was still uncertain, but she had a trace of a smile on her lips as she pulled away from Chromia and turned to face Metroplex’s dark processor.

She knelt to pick up the linkup cable, putting Chromia at the perfect angle to rest a hand on Windblade’s shoulder. Windblade covered Chromia’s hand with one of hers to keep it there, and then plugged the cable into her helm.

“Be safe,” Chromia said, after wracking her brain for a sentiment that expressed her worry without casting doubt on Windblade’s abilities. Windblade squeezed Chromia’s hand, as much as she could from that angle, and then the processor alit with power, turning the room briefly to what looked like pure light.

-

Being connected to Metroplex’s mind as he came back online was like being inside a furnace. Thought processes like flames surrounded Windblade, pulling her attention in every direction at once. Like she’d been trained, she let them flow around her, let them happen as they would if she weren’t there.

Once she’d let go of trying to understand the whole tide, unifying threads started to solidify in her processor. Caution, intrigue, and the same profound loneliness that defined Caminus.

When Windblade had merged with Caminus in her training, he hadn’t noticed her. He had been too deep in slumber, and his thoughts had flown by, threatening to knock her astray. But Metroplex knew she was here. His thoughts surrounded her in a hum of careful interest, wanting to know who Windblade was. Wanting her to be the salvation he needed.

 _I am_ , Windblade thought with all the surety that Chromia’s solid hand on her shoulder gave her.

 _Wind-voice_. Suddenly Windblade was seeing herself in Metroplex’s thoughts – her actual body, kneeling in the processor chamber, Chromia’s face pinched with worry behind her.

Windblade could have stayed here until her spark burnt out from the strain, exploring Metroplex’s memories and reveling in the connection they shared. But that wasn’t an option, not when they had so much work left to do.

 _I’m here_ , Windblade made sure to project once more, and then, using carefully practiced protocols, she disengaged.

The inside of Metroplex’s shoulder may as well have been bled of color, compared to the brightness of Metroplex’s mind. The brain module was lit, now, from within, and the hum of tiny gears filled the room. As Windblade recovered, the monitors hooked up to the brain module started projecting flickering glyphs to communicate Metroplex’s status.

“Windblade?” Chromia’s voice wavered, her hand still under Windblade’s on Windblade’s shoulder. Windblade turned toward her, only to watch as Chromia snapped a neutral mask over the concern on her face. Behind her, Nautica’s optics were wide as she clutched a datapad to her chest.

“I’m here,” Windblade said.

-

Talking to Metroplex was different from communicating with Caminus. Caminus’s thoughts, for as long as Windblade had been a cityspeaker, had been rendered in dreamlike poetry, any meaning concealed in layers of memory and metaphor. Metroplex’s trains of thought immediately made more sense to Windblade than Caminus’s ever had.

The initial diagnostic scan that Windblade requested had failed a quarter of the way through, turning up too many errors to be held in Metroplex’s working memory. So they were going over necessary repairs region by region, attempting to sort them by priority.

Metroplex brought up a schematic of his spark chamber, far below them, complete with a blue dot where he was tracking Chromia’s movements. There had been a particularly bad mess of warnings and errors when Metroplex had tried to scan that region, so Chromia had gone down to survey it for an immediately obvious cause.

“Did she find it?” Windblade asked.

 **[No].** The schematic zoomed in on Chromia, who appeared to be standing in front of a storage container that had been built into the wall. **[Sad].**

Of course Metroplex would worry about Chromia’s emotional state, even when he was so badly hurt and by all rights shouldn’t even trust them yet. Windblade’s will to help and protect him surged. “I know,” Windblade said, flowing with the change of topic. “I wish that she wasn’t.”

 **[Wind-voice] [love] [her].** From anyone but a Titan – anyone but Metroplex, in Windblade’s experience – those words would have been phrased as a question. But this was Metroplex, who, in some ways, might already know her better than she knew herself.

She may as well admit it. “Yes.”

 **[Why] [sad] [?].** _Why are you letting her continue to be sad?_

Windblade froze. It was the simplest of questions. It followed logically from the conversation before. But suddenly no answer seemed good enough, true enough, to say to Metroplex.

 **[Wind-voice] [afraid]**.

“Of course I’m afraid. If something goes wrong…my loyalties can’t be divided.”

Metroplex displayed a symbol that Windblade had never been able to decipher, but had decided to tentatively label as his expression of amusement. Then the alarms started going off.

-

Chromia was certainly no Cityspeaker, but even she could tell that there was something wrong with this.

Metroplex’s spark burned inside a translucent chamber that had rickety walkways installed around and above it, all along its two-mile circumference. The walkways were rusted enough that Chromia had tied herself to a rope just in case a piece of worn-out metal gave way while she was standing on it.

None of that was the part that struck Chromia as intensely wrong, though: that would be the cases affixed to the sides of the spark chamber, some of which had been jostled badly enough that sparklight shone through, meaning that whoever had placed them there had removed the protective chamber casing to do so.

Chromia lashed her rope to a stable-seeming section of walkway and started to lower herself down to investigate one of the protrusions more closely. The opaque metal protrusion was just small enough for her to look at the side farthest from the spark chamber, feeling the heat from the tiny crack between the start of the protrusion and the place where the spark chamber had been removed building on her calf.

The side facing away from the spark casing, like Chromia had hoped, was transparent. It looked to be a sliding door, with a mechanism that would shut the inside of the spark chamber from the protrusion when opened.

Inside the case was a gun the size of Chromia.

The note on the bottom corner of the transparent side read that it was a spark-powered instant-kill gun, for snipers. It would theoretically be able to snuff a target’s spark no matter where on the body they were hit.

Chromia knew that Cybertron had been at war. But she hadn’t really considered what _war_ might look like. The War of Primes, that they learned about and remembered on Caminus, had been brutal, apparently – whole cities fighting against each other. Chromia had never considered what that meant – how far someone set on killing might be willing to go.

A creak from the walkway above distracted her. She glanced up and felt fear wash through her frame. She had tied her rope onto a secure walkway – she knew it.

But now it looked like the walls securing the walkway to the body of the Titan around it were _expanding._ The walkway screeched once, twice, and then snapped, sending Chromia careening towards the bottom of the chamber.

She managed to cut the rope that was attaching her to the metal walkway, now falling into the darkness, but that left her with nothing to hold onto except for the obviously-weakened protrusion she had been examining. The one holding an insta-kill gun.

There was no choice. She lurched for it and grabbed on.

The protrusion seemed to pull a little further away from the spark casing, heating the air around Chromia immediately as if a fire had started, but it held. She listened for three, four, five, six seconds, and then finally heard the severed walkway hit the bottom of the chamber with a terrific crash.

She calculated the walkway’s probable weight, how long it would take for it to reach terminal velocity, and how far it would have had to fall, and concluded that if she let go of this protrusion, she would die.

The heat of Metroplex’s spark started to burn her faceplate, and the protrusion peeled another inch away from the casing.

-

<Windblade?>

Windblade snapped her optics away from the alert coming from Metroplex’s spark chamber stabilizers to give her full attention to Chromia’s comm.

<What is it? What happened?> Windblade knew that she was frozen at the monitor, that she should be investigating, but the panic that had filtered through from Chromia had rendered her unable to move until she knew exactly how bad the situation was.

<The walkway I was using collapsed. I’m in the spark chamber. I’m stuck. And my handhold won’t last long.>

<I’m coming.>

<Just in case you don’t make it in time, I need you to know – the Autobots did something to his spark casing. They’re using it to charge weapons. You and Nautica need to get them out of here. _Carefully. > _

<And you. I’m coming to get you.> Windblade pushed away from the monitor and ran. She swung herself onto the pulley that Chromia had rigged up to transport them all the stories down to the spark chamber. She had rigged it to be safe, and it was _too slow_.

<Thought the Autobots were supposed to be the good guys, but this stuff is _gnarly_.> Chromia’s comm was thick with discomfort and the effort of trying to hide it. <Be careful out there, okay?>

<I won’t have to. You’ll be there to protect me,> said Windblade, believing it with all her spark. She judged the rest of the distance down to the platform that led to the spark chamber and jumped, landing in a crouch that sent a sharp pain up from her ankle strut.

Nothing she couldn’t handle. She ran forward to yank open the door to the spark chamber. It wouldn’t budge.

<It won’t open!>

<It’s probably a safeguard – the weapons are letting energy out of the spark casing. It must be a massive drain, and I damaged it even more.>

<Gah!> Windblade tried the door again to no avail. She stepped back for a moment and examined it, to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. She wasn’t here for her brute strength.

Next to the door was a rusted over panel that looked like it covered an indentation in the wall. It could be covering some irrelevant circuitry, something that could just delay Windblade from rescuing Chromia.

But it could also be the key to everything.

Windblade tore the panel off the wall.

Inside was a lever. Windblade had seen the likes of it in ancient art that she’d studied in learning everything there was to know about Titans. This was a severance switch, that would temporarily cut off Metroplex’s control of this sector of his anatomy.

If Windblade pressed this switch, she would shatter Metroplex’s trust in her. It was something Windblade would have once sworn she would never do.

<I love you.> Chromia’s message was fuzzy now with pain.

<I love you too.>

Windblade didn’t think, didn’t even remember making the decision. She pulled the lever. It didn’t even stick with the resistance she’d expected from the corrosion everywhere in Metroplex.

The lights in the corridor shut off. Then, impossibly, the door slid open.

“Chromia!” Windblade dashed inside the spark chamber, lit by the blue light from Metroplex’s spark.

Chromia had left a pack near the entrance with an extra length of rope inside. Windblade lashed one end around her waist and _ran_ , hearing delicate connections grind and creak as she raced across the fragile walkways.

“Chromia!”

“ _Windblade?”_

Chromia was right below her. Windblade skidded to a stop and looked down. Her optics burned from the brightness of the sparklight that shone out of the damaged casing, but she was able to make out the edges of Chromia’s frame.

“I have a rope. Grab on, okay?” She didn’t wait for Chromia to answer, just threw it.

For a moment she thought Chromia was going to protest, because of some stupid self-sacrificing slag. But then Windblade felt pressure on the rope and carefully braced her hands on the railing of the walkway.

“I’ve got it.”

“I’ve got you.”

It took Chromia _minutes_ to reach the top of the rope, and by the time Windblade was grasping Chromia’s wrist to haul her the last few feet onto the walkway, Windblade still hadn’t regretted her decision. She pulled Chromia into a tight hug as soon as her feet were stable, and in that moment, didn’t regret a thing.

“How did you get in?” Chromia asked, worry in her voice even as she clung to Windblade just as tightly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Windblade said, and leaned back so she could kiss her.

Kissing Chromia again, she felt everything she’d been blocking herself from feeling the first time. She had been so wrapped up in the thoughts and feelings that Chromia was sending over their radio link that she hadn’t had time to think about things like Chromias’s hand gently cupping the side of Windblade’s neck, or the way that the gesture made her feel safe in a way nothing else ever had. She hadn’t thought about the subtle shift forward in Chromia’s posture as Windblade rested her hand on the back of her head. Hadn’t bothered to stroke a hand up the wing of Chromia’s helm, to be rewarded with a shiver and Chromia wrapping an arm around Windblade’s waist, bringing them even closer together.

After spending a long minute getting lost in the kiss, Windblade pulled back. She had to…comm Nautica, and tell her what had happened, and deal with all of this.

None of it mattered quite as much as having Chromia here in her arms.

“What did you do, Windblade?” Chromia’s voice was low and serious as she asked, cupping Windblade’s face with one hand now, with a reverence that said that the answer was secondary to the two of them. Windblade was glad they were on the same page, there.

“I shut off Metroplex’s control over this sector,” she said.

Chromia tensed but didn’t recoil. “You – you _what_?”

“It was worth it,” Windblade said, leaning her helm into Chromia’s shoulder. She gave herself five seconds and then pulled back. She would deal with this. They had to leave – Metroplex wouldn’t want them to stay, after what Windblade had done. She would tell Nautica, and they would figure something out.

When Windblade onlined her optics again, a monitor behind Chromia’s shoulder had illuminated. Probably some kind of automatic status update. She reluctantly disengaged herself from Chromia and walked over to investigate.

On the screen was the last symbol she’d seen from Metroplex, the one she’d characterized as amusement.

“We need to go upstairs,” Windblade said. Taking Chromia’s hand was the most natural thing in the universe. Metroplex had something to say, and Windblade owed it to him to hear it.

Windblade and Chromia made their way back to the shoulder. Chromia tried to release Windblade’s hand and stay back as she approached the brain module, but Windblade refused to let her.

“Metroplex?” Windblade asked, spark swirling as she waited for his reaction.

**[Hello] [Wind-voice].**

“What’s going on?” There was no way he’d had time to override the severance switch before projecting the glyph to the monitor in the spark chamber.

**[I am] [well]. [Wind-voice] [chooses] [correct].**

“That was a test?” Windblade managed to ask.

**[Wind-voice] [ally].**

“What’s he saying?” Chromia asked, no longer trying to pull away.

Windblade translated the words and continued to try to read the glyphs aloud as Metroplex explained that he’d agreed to charge the weapons for his Autobot allies. Now, knowing that they weren’t coming back, he had put up a shield inside his spark casing to protect it from energy loss.

The “severance switch” that Windblade had found had been a test that Metroplex had set up as soon as they’d gotten here, to determine if Windblade had the –

“I think it means ‘wisdom’?” Windblade guessed from context, even though the word was unfamiliar. She filed it away to work on. “That I had the necessary wisdom to work with Metroplex.” Windblade let out a tense, strangled laugh. “It doesn’t make any sense that I passed.”

“You’d doubt the decree of a Titan?” Chromia’s voice was teasing, but she had a good point. Good enough that Windblade couldn’t stop herself from turning around and kissing Chromia again.

-

“We’re never going to come clean to Nautica, are we?” Chromia was holding Windblade, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to recharge quite yet.  

Windblade turned over in Chromia’s arms so that they were facing each other. “Why? Did you want to?”

Chromia couldn’t help but chuckle. “No. Obviously. I couldn’t believe you waited the _whole trip here_ and didn’t.”

Windblade laughed, sending vibrations through Chromia’s frame. “Well, I guess it turns out I didn’t want to either.”

“About what you said before,” Chromia started. She felt Windblade nod against her arm. “If you’re still worried about being too devoted to being a Cityspeaker to…do whatever it is we’re doing, don’t be. That you care so much about everyone, everything you see…that’s why I love you. You don’t ever have to worry over being yourself.”

“Then I’ll try not to,” Windblade said. She went in for another kiss and Chromia happily met her. “And I love you too.” 

 


End file.
